This week Steve revisits a publisher’s SF line that took everyone by surprise, because they were known for romance novels, Gothic bodice-rippers and the like. Laser Books, edited by Roger Elwood, came and went within a few years, but left a mark on our genre. Was it a good or bad mark? Read and find out…
Steve takes you back to 1954, when newspapers cost a nickel and a bus trip through town was a dime. Back then SF writers were real men and women, not like today’s namby-pamby… er, he finds a lot of old SF fun and involving to read. He hopes you will too.
Remembrance/Veterans’ Day! Today Steve remembers a trip to the hometown of the Dean of SF Writers, Robert Anson Heinlein, himself a veteran of the US Navy (both Steve and RAH). It was an interesting pilgrimage.
Steve reviews Robert J. Sawyer’s terrific new book, The Oppenheimer Alternative, and loved it. Yes, really… he loved it.
In this redo of his fifth column from 2013, Steve talks about visiting Butler, Missouri, the town where Robert A. Heinlein was born. Are they proud of him? Heck, yes!
Forty years ago, Steve (with more than A Little Help From His Friends) created MosCon. And It Was Good. But like the Living Dead, MosCon Returned! Is it Still Good? Read and find out! (Hint: You betcha!)
This week Steve dips back into SF’s past—focusing on 1928 and 1962. Why those years? You’ll have to read and find out…and if that doesn’t work, ask him yourself!
This week, Steve continues his romp into his past by talking about Robert A. Heinlein, E.E. “Doc” Smith’s daughter, Verna Smith Trestrail; and MosCon 1, back in 1979.
This week, Steve tries to go Back to the Future but ends up in the past, where he meets Spider and Jeanne Robinson as well as Robert and Virginia Heinlein! Come with him and see!
Continuing his retro-look at some older columns, Steve talks about Ace Doubles and their cover art. We’re talking about The Good Old Stuff, in both writing and SF illustration. Get Some Now!
MosCon was a Northwest Fannish Legend (perhaps in its own mind), and Steve takes you back to those “thrilling days of yesteryear,” as The Lone Ranger used to say.
Another friend gone; Steve mourns Debbie Miller; also New Venture and MosCon reminiscences. And both fiction and non-fiction StoryBundles! Go get ’em!
Laser books was a flash-in-the-pan series of SF books put out by romance publisher Harlequin, and edited by the late Roger Elwood. Steve takes a quick look at the series, hoping to pique your interest. Steve also offers a book Giveaway!
Steve reviews a seminal classic: Destination Moon, the first Hollywood SF blockbuster that respected both science and science fiction.
Every con has a name badge, and most of them are well designed, like a little piece of art. Badge collecting is a great way to save convention memories
I’m going to assume that you are a science fiction reader of some kind, since you’re here at Amazing Stories magazine’s website. Are you a science fiction fan? (I’m going to abbreviate it “SF” to […]
Steve has been an active fan since the 1970s, when he founded the Palouse Empire Science Fiction Association and the more-or-less late MosCon in Pullman, WA and Moscow, ID, though he started reading SF/F in the early-to-mid 1950s, when he was just a sprat. He moved to Canada in 1985 and quickly became involved with Canadian cons, including ConText (’89 and ’81) and VCON. He’s published a couple of books and a number of short stories, and has collaborated with his two-time Aurora-winning wife Lynne Taylor Fahnestalk on a number of art projects. As of this writing he’s the proofreader for R. Graeme Cameron’s Polar Borealis and Polar Starlight publications. He’s been writing for Amazing Stories off and on since the early 1980s. His column can be found on Amazing Stories most Fridays.
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